Stormpilot: The Saga of an Imperial Deserter
by Diabolico
Summary: After Captain Rex Calhoun is shot down in his TIE Interceptor during the Battle of Endor and the eve of the Empire's destruction, he watches his best efforts fail against Rebel innovation, and loses faith with the collapsing Empire. The story follows his
1. Default Chapter

Life as a Stormpilot for the Imperial Remnant was not easy, thought Rex Calhoun as he began his third pass on the Rebel ship in his newly issued TIE Interceptor. The Interceptor's typical TIE design coupled with it's jumped up engines and high-powered laser ports made it essentially the fastest, most dangerous and equally agile fighter in the empire's arsenal, but also one of the hardest to control. If it wasn't hard enough being the only guy named 'Rex' in the entire galaxy, Calhoun caught himself thinking, he also had to deal with avoiding speeding his insanely tight-handling craft into the rebel targets, not to mention getting his ass blown to pieces over Endor by a lucky X-wing fighter or a speedy little A-wing.

"Jak, take the left shield generator section on that center ship, and I'll hit the right on my way out," The Fighter Captain ordered his unit members through his headset, "Henry? You come in with Timor after we've knocked out the shields and let 'em have it." The beeps of the commlinks in his ear set told him a second later the unit was behind him, but just as the formation was getting set a transmission cracked through.

"Hey boss?" It was Jak, Rex's second in command and good friend, "Timor just bit the stardust, sir, we're running out of pilots here."

"Damn it!" The Captain swore; they were too close to the Rebel command ship to pull off now without risking serious damage on the way out, so the Pilot changed his plan. "Okay, okay, Jak and me hit the shields, then Henry strafes the visual deck while I circle around to hit the engines. Jak? You cover me on my second run."

"Right, boss." Jak beeped in,

"Real risky business, lead; better hope Jak can cut it!" Henry laughed nervously.

"Cut the chatter, gentlemen; here we go!" Rex hit the Fighter's accelerators and felt the jolt of speed as he let loose with his blasters and strafed the Rebel cruiser's underbelly, watching the brilliant blue flashes of the ship's shield where his blasters made contact, finally hitting home as he rounded the underside and strafed the ship's right shield generator section, seeing in satisfaction the violent explosion caused by his run and the flicker of the shields to none as Jak took out the generator on the other side. Seconds later and just in time the cruiser's observatory deck exploded under Henry's rapid blasters and Rex yanked hard up and to the right on his Fighter's controls to bring him close enough to the failing Rebel vessel's backmost engines. As he squeezed off his last blaster rounds from the Interceptor's four rapid laser cannons the hull seemed to lurch dangerously in space as the bright blue engines erupted into flames. The explosions along the visual deck intensified as the destabilized engines detonated the back sections and the life support systems of the cruiser, culminating in a brilliant explosion which the three TIE Fighters sped from just in the nick of time.

"Good shooting, Jak; thanks for the cut in, Henry …" Rex crowed with pride, "Now let's get to work on those A-wings; our ties can't track their faster engines like we can."

"Sure thing, Boss; and some pretty fancy flying back there." Jak replied happily, his lithe fighter zooming off formation to engage a passing rebel A-wing. As Rex zeroed in on a speeding Rebel fighter he caught a glimpse of the imposing Death Star in the distance, hovering eerily and partially under construction over the Endor moon.

"Sure hope those Rebels brought insurance on their ships," Henry beeped in as his blasters caught an unfortunate A-wing, "Because that Death Star is a bit more operational than we let them on to."

As if on cue, the giant laser crater rumbled to life, the outlets on the rim jetting streams of green light into a bright ball of laser-hot energy over the center cannon.

"Uh oh," Rex was able to say before the center cannon shot through the energizing ball, beading out directly into a Rebel cruiser, annihilating the structure with ease which would otherwise have cost Rex a lot of his unit to bring down. Tearing his eyes away from the incredible display of Imperial might, the pilot swung his sights across the battle scene and picked out an X-wing with Rouge Squadron's insignia. "Get ready to paint me another 'X' on my wing, Jak, I'm on the Rouge!" And he whipped his agile craft after the slower, less maneuverable Rebel fighter. Arching suddenly down from above the Rebel, Rex's blasters tore relentlessly into the back hull, frying the R2 unit and shattering the exposed vitals of the fighter's upper back and engines. The fighter began to flame out erratically, it's pilot no doubt frantically searching his control panel for the coolant valve that wouldn't help with the damage Rex's cannons had done; the disabled craft spun wildly into a loitering Rebel cruiser, penetrating the shields around the visual deck and smashing into the command center, probably rendering the ship useless. "Yeah! Two for one; did you see that, Jak?" the Captain cheered, checking his display for Jak's location. "Jak?" He scanned the monitor again, tapping it absently with his gloved finger, thinking it must be broken; Jak's signal was dormant, meaning he was either landed or …

"Captain?" A voice clicked into his channel, it was Henry, "Captain Jak got clipped by an X-wing just a second ago; I was trying to cover him from up top, but the Rebel cut in from below; I never saw him coming." Henry explained in a pained voice.

"Jak's been … taken out, Ren?" the captain asked another pilot in his unit, not ready to believe his best mate had just ceased living.

"I'm afraid so, Captain." The voice came back to him, "I nabbed the X-wing who got him, but it was too late; his life support systems got fried and he burnt out a second later. We were on private formation channel." Rex's head sunk as he struggled to focus on staying alive himself.

"Boss?" Henry's voice spoke out nervously, "Where're you going, Rex?" He looked up, and indeed he was headed almost directly into the latest flood of X-wings taking off from one of the larger Rebel cruisers. "Talk to me, Captain."

"Relax, Henry," He said quietly into his headset, wringing his hands over his controls and easing up on the throttles, "I'm just going to give Rouge Squadron a little payback, I'll be right back." He zeroed in on the first of the X-Wings, whose four blaster cannons were blazing towards him in a hailstorm of laser-fire.

"Boss don't do this!" Henry told him, "There's a million of them, you'll hit a wall of …" But Rex had switched off his headset, letting loose on the approaching Rouge and feeling the rush of adrenaline as his much faster laser cannons shattered the small window and ripped through the entire front of the Rebel fighter; it exploded instantly. Breaking off to the lower right, Rex targeted the next X-wing, lasering the top two engines and sending the burning ship somersaulting off into space. Just as he was fixing his open sights on another Rouge, a rocking explosion shuddered his hull, throwing his aim off, but still landing a few rounds in two of the X-wings in their tight formation, one of them burning up instantly, and the other winging off wildly and heading back for it's mother-ship due to damage.

"Damn!" Rex cursed, looking wildly up in his cockpit for the fighter who'd clipped him, and checking his ship's damage report at the same time, while his multitasking hands pulled him into expert evasion tactics. His solar panel was hit on his right side, the wide, pointed wing burning freely in space. He'd lost two of his blaster cannons and his right engine was damaged badly, he noticed, as his hand controls began jerking erratically. "Shit, I'm going down!" He said, switching on his commlink again to the cries of his unit.

"What the hell happened, Captain? Where are you?"

"I see him; you're headed for the gravitational field of the Endor moon, boss, I'll come alongside and try and buffer the atmosphere!" Henry's voice reassured him, but they both knew it was useless; the Interceptors of the design they were flying were space-launched and designed, meaning once the ship entered a planet's atmosphere, the engines, (especially a damaged one,) would not be powerful enough to take the weight back out again.

"Hold that thought, Henry;" Rex replied, "I'm screwed, I know, I'll try and crash land near the base and get back up here if they've got any regular units down there, but it's useless to take two of us out; the unit needs you." He said, switching off his commlink again and buckling his extra crash-landing belts. He began making preparations for entering the atmosphere of Endor's wooded moon.


	2. Crash Landing 101

Rex pulled back hard on the throttles, his TIE Interceptor screaming down through the Endor atmosphere, his barely functional navigational system showing him his ship was on a fairly straight orbit course to crash land somewhere near the shield generator base supplying the orbiting Death Star with its protective orb against the Rebel assault. Raking closer and closer to the treetops of the primitive and gigantic forest below, the pilot's eyes scanned frantically for a safe landing spot to steer his damaged ship towards. The Interceptor, due to its incredible speed and powerful engines, was going to be a real bitch to land, Calhoun realized with grim anxiety. _There!_ The navigation map had found a clearing somewhere near the predicted impact point of the fighter. Now all he had to do was get there and pray the nav. computer stayed online for the next two minutes it would take to get the failing ship there.

"Damn it!" Rex screamed at the screen as it suddenly blinked and lost power. "Don't _do_ this to me, baby!" He slammed a gloved fist into the screen, surprising himself as the thick glass blinked back into life, showing the predicted landing area almost directly ahead. _He was there!_

His hands barely got back down to the controls to jerk them sharply downwards towards the sudden opening in the trees. Here's where he put his training to the test; he'd never actually crash landed before, but after a couple of rocky simulator rides, the pilot had earned his wings with good enough marks on his emergency maneuvers tests. The controls buckled hard under him as he hit the brakes hard and sudden, pushing forward on the accelerator switch to kill the engines almost all at once before bringing them back to half power and cranking them down gradually but firmly, at the same time pulling down on the controls and squinting his face up under his helmet in anticipation for the impact the system told him should have happened three seconds ago. Then he hit. At about 65 mph, (which for a TIE Interceptor was incredibly slow,) the pointed wings ground hard into the earth, flipping the light craft over itself and knocking the pilot around horribly despite his emergency buckles and braced posture. He heard and saw chaos, the rumbling and screeching of metal on ground and rock with the metal losing under the solid ground; he heard a steadily rising drone as his ship flipped and bumped over and over along the ground, gradually slowing to an upside down stop near the tree line. It was only then did he realize the steady drone wasn't the ship; he was screaming at the top of his lungs, and his helmet was rattling loosely on his shoulders, the air tubes from his chest life support system both ripped clear of their holster in his helmet and were spewing compressed air all about the also smoking and fizzing cockpit. He stopped screaming, ripped his helmet off and worked frantically with the roof latch.

Five minutes later, the dazed pilot was throwing up that morning's Captain's rations and Imperial coffee on the soft, upturned and in some places smoldering ground of the crash site. He sat up a moment later, pulling himself weakly away from the mess for fear of the sight of his revisited eggs and hash browns, and decided he was having a bad day. After pulling from the wreckage of his once beautiful and deadly ship the emergency rations and survival tools every pilot had stored in their craft, the stormpilot checked his blaster and wrist mounted navigation computer and set off into the woods in front of him. Almost immediately the pilot was lost; he had, like most pilots and Imperial soldiers in general, received a few courses in survival in various habitats and worlds, from poison gas worlds to woods and deserts like Tatoinne, the pilot had run shifts on all sorts of systems and visited the bases on most of them on leave from his Star Destroyer. About twenty minutes later, and Rex was beginning to wonder just how accurate his computer had been in calculating his orbit in conjunction with the Endor moon base, and he was just about to begin voicing his opinion to the useless guidance watch against a nearby jutting rock when he heard a far away but still quite distinct sound. An explosion, and very distant blaster fire.

A crunching in the underbrush at the top of the hill he faced brought Rex out of his stunned silence, and his blaster pistol swung up with a soft click.

"Holy hopping Hutts!" cried a voicebox-filtered voice from the ridge, "How the hell did you end up out here, pilot?" and Rex received not the first surprise of the afternoon when a pair of scoutroopers stepped out of the woods above him, blaster rifles up and at the ready.

"Oh man am I glad to see you guys," Calhoun exclaimed, "Safety and a new ship down here on solid ground!" The two scouts shared a look that Rex was sure would have been withering if they hadn't been wearing white helmets.

"Nobody could really see it coming." The first one said cautiously.

"Who knew the Rebels could get by our security in such numbers?" The second one agreed, and Rex's shoulders slumped not for the first time.

"The Rebels are attacking the base?" He didn't need an expression from the faceless visors to know the truth. "How many of them are here?" Another look shared.

"The Rebels? Not many," began the first scout.

"But they've got a little bit of help from some of the locals …" the second man finished. Rex didn't understand.

"What, I didn't think any humanoids had any bases here!" He said, "The Rebels have had a base here the whole time?"

"Not exactly, flyboy,"

"Well, what then?"

"There's these sort of, uh, sort of fuzzy little teddy bear things that apparently live here on the moon," the scouts explained.

"They're about this tall," The first man told the pilot, indicating a height just under three feet, "At the very tallest, but they've proven to be quite determined little warriors, a couple of guys from our unit went after the tribe, and we haven't heard from them since. We're here trying to round them up and take control of the woods around the base perimeter, but we think something's happened to the base, so we were heading back when we heard your footsteps."

The Stormpilot could barely believe his ears at the crazy seeming story, but he quickly decided that he'd probably seen and heard enough crazy things in his tours around the galaxy to give some credit to the insane tale of the scout troopers. How did the Rebels find out about the base, or even better yet, get a sizable force onto the planet through the empire's massive net of security. How did they even find out about the new Death Star?

"Tell me have an extra speeder bike lying around?" He tried after a few seconds contemplation. The two scouts shared a third look.

"Actually, I think we do." The second man spoke up in a tone that made Rex think perhaps there was a catch.

"Our commander from Unit 227 took a bit of a spill a little ways back and we managed to get his bike stabilized a few miles back, we left it out in a clearing, so you can hop on with one of us and we'll get you to her if you know how to ride."

"Sure, how dangerous could it be?" Still another look.

"Well, you see that's the funny thing …" chuckled the first scout, "That's exactly what our Unit commander said."

"And where is he? You got him back to the medical section, right?"

"He's sort of dead, man." The scouts replied.

"Oh," Rex grimaced, "Wonderful."


	3. The Battle of Endor

He hadn't used one of these since Junior Academy days, Rex recalled with slight trepidation on seeing the long, slender black and brown speederbike in front of him. He jumped lightly down from the scout's back pouch and walked over to his new ride.

"It's no TIE Interceptor," He shrugged, "But it'll do." The scouts laughed, and asked again if he was sure he could 'handle the darn thing'; he was sure, and off they went.

Calhoun was used to piloting at high speeds, much higher speeds than the land bike could reach, in fact, but the speeder's controls were different than a spaceship's, and also he wasn't exactly used to weaving in and out of heavy foliage with trees easily the size of a pair of upset Troazodons. Ten minutes into the ride, he'd gotten no closer to the base according to his nav. display and only a bunch of scratches and cuts on his helmet-less face from the passing whips of forest branches. The other two bikers slowed to his crawling speed a few moments later and the trio stopped.

"Okay, pilot, we just got an emergency call from our Unit secondary; the new command," The first one told him from his hovering bike, "We're needed back at the base right away, apparently some Rebels have managed to lodge themselves in front of the blast doors and are trying to work their way in."

"They've got an ATST on the way to help them, but none of us can raise the drivers; like they took off their helmets or something. Anyways, we're going to have to speed ahead and try and clear the Rebels out."

"You've got your watch system and the bike's indicators, so you should have no problem getting back to base at your own pace, right?" The scouts were already winding up their engines, "If you're not accounted for by the time this is all mopped up we'll send a party out to this sector of the woods and find you alright." Rex was more embarrassed than upset by the news, which came as no great surprise.

"I'm just sorry to have slowed you boys down," He said, "If there's anything I can take out on my way in, I'll be sure to take a shot at it for your unit."

"Sounds like a plan, flyboy!" The last scout out of sight yelled over his shoulder, "Just ease up on the throttles and keep an eye out for fuzzy bears and Rebels!"

The pilot waited a few minutes to get his bearings, then took off on the speeder once again, picking a course he figured would keep him wide of most of the biggest branches and making his way steadily towards the shield base. Suddenly, a blaster round swung high and in front of his bike, sending him swerving to his right in a frantic evasive maneuver and within a few inches of a giant tree.

"What the …?" Then he saw them; five Rebels taking refuge behind a fallen tree off to his left. He gritted his teeth and swung the throttles to the max, running his speeder directly back towards the small group and letting loose with the bike's heavy laser cannon on the underbelly; these bastards and their friends had killed Jak, and he hadn't finished his revenge up above the moon.

The blaster cannon sent sparks and fires leaping up from the rotted wood of the Rebel's cover, and Rex saw with a smile of content the first of the soldiers to stand fly backwards with a heavy cannon round burning through the green fatigues on his chest.

"Find more cover!" The Rebels cried, scattering as the speeder dove into their midst, the cannon swinging wildly and picking off another fleeing enemy with a shot to the middle of his back which sent him tumbling head over heels to the muddy earth dead. The other Rebels spread out and turned their rifles towards the circling pilot's speeder, finding cover behind large trees or dips in the forest floor. He saw three left, and made for the closest of the troopers; ducking under a large bush Calhoun was sure his bike could handle. His booted feet clamped down on the throttles, sending him rocketing and weaving through the foliage towards the blaster fire coming from the bushes.

"Look out!" A Rebel screamed, but it was too late; the hidden soldier had stood to take aim at the speeder bike and caught the vehicle's pointed front-piece square in the face. It happened so fast, Rex wasn't clear exactly what happened to the soldier's head, but he was sure it wasn't on his shoulders anymore.

Circling the remaining two enemies, the pilot ducked and hugged the bike frame close as he sped towards the tree the blaster fire from the closer Rebel sprayed forth from. Just as he let off with his cannon, however, a stray Rebel round glazed his bloody front-piece, frying the thin metal panes and sending his bike flying erratically off through the forest. Dizzy and terrified and furious that the Rebel's had again gotten the better of him, the pilot pulled back on the throttles as far as the damaged speeder would allow and held his breath for the upcoming tree he could not avoid. He jumped. The deafening explosion of the speeder into the tree probably didn't help him out, the pilot thought grimly as he felt the heat and force of the eruption propel his body off through the forest, stray branches whipping his body as he hit the ground shoulder first, rolled four or five times before his lightly armored back slammed into a tree trunk, stopping him with a painful guffaw. He was still alive, however, and decided he wanted to stay that way. His gloved hand slid to his blaster, pulled it out and checked the status of the weapon quickly; still operational; he pulled himself up and lay against the trunk with a vacant look on his face and his weapon pointed slightly upwards from under his left hand and part of his emergency survival pack, which he had swung over his back for the journey.

"Did you see where he landed?" a voice called out cautiously from somewhere behind him, and the pilot slumped his head on his shoulder in an attempt to appear dead or seriously injured.

"There, what's that?" Another voice called, and the imperial glimpsed the shadow of a human form walking towards him through the woods. "Here he is; looks pretty beat up, or dead."

"Is he moving? Breathing?" The first voice asked, and the pilot heard the crunch of footsteps come closer. He stilled his breaths and waited, tight as a spring ready to move.

"If he is, he soon won't be …" The second voice responded with a chuckle, and Rex made his move; his eyes shooting open and his hands moving with lightening speed from the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, the blaster pistol came up and the Rebel found himself a bit too late as the red laser round burned two holes in his forehead just below the rim of his helmet. His body twitched, his head a smoking mess, and then dropped back limp and dead.

"Holy shit!" the second voice cried, but the pilot was already on his feet and with his back to the tree; the other Rebel was probably walking around the huge trunk when he let off his blaster. "He might have been useful, man! You've got to stop just killing people!"

"What?" The Stormpilot couldn't stop himself from asking; _The Rebel hadn't seen his partner die; of course! He thought Rex was dead!_ "Oh, uh," He started again, trying his best to remember what the dead Rebel's voice had sounded like. "Sorry, won't happen again, man." There was a short silence, and the footsteps resumed with the voice.

"So where do you think _that _guy came from?" The Rebel was asking as the pilot pistol-whipped him across the jaw, sending him unconscious to the ground just as he came around the tree.

"Moron," The Imperial spat, searching the dead man and his unconscious friend, taking one rifle and hiding the other and stuffing some of the Rebel's fatigues and papers he found in the pockets into his survival pouch, trading them for a vitamin bar and a sip of water. He set off again into the jungle, using the survival pack's compass to direct him towards the base's coordinates on the navigation watch's tiny green and black map; he was still about a mile and a half away. He figured, and the blaster fire and general sound of approaching chaos were all around him.

"Whoa!" Calhoun cried in surprise as he came out of the woods at a crouch into a small clearing. Just in front of him, a fully erect and standing ATST stood staring down at him. He put up his hands and motioned to the drivers he couldn't quite see under the shades of the eyes. "I'm on your side, mates!" He waved, but the giant assault vehicle didn't move. "Hello?" he asked tentatively, but still nothing.

It couldn't be empty, he told himself, not standing upright in the middle of the battle around them, but apparently the drivers were either dead or missing. He prayed the drivers hadn't merely missed him and would start moving, and began to climb the jutting metal pieces along the long leg. Halfway up, the pilot started running out of handholds as the structure of the vehicle thickened and the smooth side armor began, but he managed to lift his boot up onto the side cannon and hoisted his breathless and sweaty body up onto the small top platform. _Yes!_ He thought, the hatch was open, and he peered carefully down inside, praying he wouldn't surprise an Imperial driver crew, or worse. Empty. The controls looked fairly easy to operate, he thought, sitting in the seat with the hatch shut and locked a moment later, and he smiled evilly as he clanked unsteadily off towards the treeline; his new height giving him a clear view of the distant satellite of the Shield Base.

"Now let's see what damage I can do from up here …" He laughed mischievously.


	4. Surrender, Die, or

Calhoun had to admit it, the ATST was, though bumpy, one of the most entertaining vehicles he'd ever piloted in his nearly 15 years of piloting in the Imperial forces. The weapons controls were easy enough to figure out; the front blaster cannons controlled by a large switch on the driver's side and activated by a trigger on the driver's side and activated by the trigger over the main directional stick. The driver's side, on the left, housed controls for the heavy side rocket launchers and power lasers. Stomping defiantly through the forest, the pilot smiled to see the Rebels flee terrified before his powerful onslaught of advanced weaponry; sending the little bear creatures flying with explosive blasts from the front cannons, and even once taking down a Rebel group of three soldiers with a single well aimed rocket.

"Not so sure of your attack now, are you Rebel scum!" He laughed as a group of three Rebels dropped their weapons and fled off through the thick trees. He saw a huge trip wire set up before him in the trees ahead, and eased back on the controls, taking careful aim with front cannons and slicing the powerful tree open at its roots; severing the trap line and sending two of the hidden bear things scampering off through the underbrush.

"How'd I ever get along without one of these?" He chuckled to himself, charging through a Rebel barricade at full, jaunty speed. Suddenly, the earth shook and a mighty roar thundered throughout the forest, causing the ATST's thin legs to wobble dangerously as Rex swiveled the controls to fix back in the direction of the now nearby base. "Oh, shit …" He mumbled, his jaw dropping in amazement. The area of forest where the base had been was now only an ever growing ball of flame against the afternoon sky.

The Rebels had destroyed the base, and probably the remaining Imperial forces and units stationed there had not been given enough warning to evacuate. The enemy and its new Endor allies would soon mop up even the most determined of the resistance; Rex thought, part of him panicking, and who would stand to fight; facing almost certain defeat and death, when surrender was so much easier? He halted the machine, the powerful strides of the walker coming to a shaky stop. _He had to get out of this thing, before the Rebels regrouped and cornered him._ There were only two missiles left, and the blaster charges were probably close to overheating from all the use he'd put them through shredding enemy lines and barricades. He wasn't going to surrender, he knew, never; but neither would he choose to die, no; he had something else in mind …

"You capture that thing, soldier?" A voice called out from the edge of the clearing. Rex turned, the Rebel uniform he'd just put on just a bit too tight for him. The group of Rebels at the clearing stared at him with looks of disbelief and awe written on their faces. He found his voice.

"Uh, yeah, yeah I did." He said, thinking fast of a way he could possibly have intimidated the ATST drivers into submission. "Piece of cake, really; I uh, just hid there behind that tree and took a lucky shot into the right eye opening, where the drivers sit." He explained, trying to affect the air of an expert marksman. The Rebel crowd blinked in surprise as several tiny bears waddled into view and began jumping up and down, shrieking and holding their ancient spears and bows aloft in excitement.

"Hell of a shot, trooper!" Apparently the Rebel leader exclaimed, "Say, what unit are you from, anyways?" Rex thought fast, then decided, what the hell? And called out his own Imperial unit number.

"779th, private." He said, now trying to sound important once he'd glimpsed the soldier's rank; _he was only a private!_ "What unit are _you_ all from?"

"779th?" The soldier asked with a frown, "Where the hell did _you_ guys come from?" _Damn! He was suspicious …_

"The command sent us in to save you guys' sorry butts when we got news of how the Empire had you on the run!" The Imperial in disguise replied shortly; his dad had always told him if you acted with confidence the other guys would usually ignore even some of the most obvious lies you could tell them.

"I thought they only sent us down in the Imperial shuttle we high jacked …" the Rebel said thoughtfully, but the voice had lost its tone of suspicion.

"After the, uh, the fighting broke out up in space, the Rebels decided you needed more reinforcements, so they released us ground troops in small shuttles of our own." Rex replied quickly, not losing a beat. "Many of us got shot down in the descent, but some of us got here, alright."

"Well, sounds great!" The Rebel private consented, and many of the faces behind him began to smile, as well. "The more the merrier! Come on, we'll send some people out to mop this machine up and get you back to your unit at our rendezvous."

"Yeah," Calhoun grinned, "Let's get going!"

The Rebel base was in a state of disorganized disarray, the jungle clad troops running all about carrying blasters, radios, medical supplies or some combination of all three. Moments after he got there, about a half hour later, the whole bunch of them threw up their hands in cheering, and an air of great excitement took over, people and the strange little Endorians, which, Rex had since learned, were named 'Ewoks', began dancing and pointing up to the sky with cries of joy and jubilation. Someone handed him a cigar and patted him on the back in a comradely way. Just as he was shrugging off the unexplained excitement of the crowd around him, and thanking the dead Rebel whose uniform he now wore for hiding a lighter in one of his pockets, he chanced to look up into the sky at a point where several of the enemies around him were jumping around pointing and yelling about.

"Oh, no …" He whispered in shock, the unlit cigar falling from his lax lips and the lighter blowing out as yet another Rebel thumped him happily on the back and cried out, right in his ear;

"We did it, man! We did it again! Those damned Imperials are _finished!_ Once and for all, the Rebellion has _won!_"

He pulled himself away from the celebration; so many enemies, and so many terrible thoughts about all of the people he'd known who had been on the Death Star when it must have blown … first Jak had died, and now? _Millions …_ The Rebel had been right; the Imperials were finished, now; the collective might of the entire allied Imperial commanders, along with Darth Vader and the Emperor himself had been in that thing, and now that thing had ceased to be. His knees buckled, and he sprinted for the nearest tent he could find near the treeline of the Rebel encampment. Crouching, gasping behind the tent, he retched and vomited for the second time that day. Weakly, he pulled himself to his feet and pulled the tent flaps open and shut behind him, finding himself in a long, close-sided area measuring a couple of yards across and full of moaning and coughing Rebels; no doubt the injured. Grabbing a roll of bandages from a nearby table, the Imperial quickly wrapped his head in bandages and, wiping his hand over the forehead of one of the unconscious enemies next to him, spread fresh blood over his bandages. He then wrapped his bloody hand up in the bandages, as well, and toppled over into an empty bunk near the back of the tent. He was asleep and snoring in no time, the full day of being shot down, wrecking a speeder bike, and barely escaping becoming a Rebel prisoner had tired him beyond all caring for the incredible and galaxy-changing events taking place around him; the world seemed in a haze, the Rebel victory a mere bad dream to be slept off, and the deaths of all those he'd known or been affiliated with only a far away illusion. He slept, and no man else in the tent deserved to sleep more.


End file.
